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Discover philosophy's impact on Christianity in this new theology textbook
This first volume of the new Brill series "Ancient Philosophy & Religion" offers analyses of Platonic philosophy and piety, the emergence of a common religio-philosophical discourse in Antiquity, the place of Jesus among ancient philosophers, and responses of pagan philosophers to Christianity from the second century to Late Antiquity.
"Plato's Gift to Christianity is a book for all who seek to understand the beauty and depth of the Christian faith: for family discussions of values, virtues, and happiness; for educators who teach about the founding of Western Civilization and its basis of ethics; and especially for the Christian clergy who are not familiar with the Greek Classical and Platonic influence upon the making of Christianity. Dr. Ehrlich has presented here a most comprehensive study on the Platonic teachings adopted by the New Testament and Early Church." --
Living more than four centuries apart in very different cultures, Jesus and Socrates wrote nothing themselves, but they inspired their followers to set down words that continue to shape Western consciousness. In this deeply personal and provocative meditation, Paul Gooch reflects on enduring themes that arise from the lives of these two pivotal figures: death and witness, silence as the limit of language, prayer, obedience, and love. Focusing on the Jesus of the Gospels and the Socrates of Plato's dialogues, Gooch does not debate the historical realities of either figure, but seeks to understand their fundamental commitments to philosophy and to God, drawing parallels and contrasts that invite deeper reflection upon our own lives and experiences. Throughout this book, Gooch tells and retells the stories of Socrates and Jesus as he examines perennial human issues: why would anyone willingly die? To what do these two martyrlike deaths bear witness? What are the limits of words in explanation and defense? Why was Jesus silent during his trial? Why did Socrates' most powerful apologia fail? What words, if any, work in prayer? Do words work against the fear of death? Out of this philosophical and religious questioning, Reflections on Jesus and Socrates throws new light on these two compelling figures and on the continuing meanings of their stories for us today.
Peter Kreeft imagines what would happen if Socrates woke up today and enrolled in divinity school. Kreeft's new introduction for this edition highlights the inspirations for the book and the key questions of truth and faith it addresses.
Many of us tend to live as though Jesus represents the "spiritual part" of our lives. We don't clearly see how he relates to the rest of our experiences, desires, and habits. How can Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity become more than a compartmentalized part of our lives? Highly regarded New Testament scholar and popular teacher Jonathan Pennington argues that we need to recover the lost biblical image of Jesus as the one true philosopher who teaches us how to experience the fullness of our humanity in the kingdom of God. Jesus teaches us what is good, right, and beautiful and offers answers to life's big questions: what it means to be human, how to be happy, how to order our emotions, and how we should conduct our relationships. This book brings Jesus and Christianity into dialogue with the ancient philosophers who asked the same big questions about finding meaningful happiness. It helps us rediscover biblical Christianity as a whole-life philosophy, one that addresses our greatest human questions and helps us live meaningful and flourishing lives.
This book tells a compelling story about love, friendship, and the Divine that took over a thousand years to unfold. It argues that mind and feeling are intrinsically connected in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus; that Aristotle developed his theology and physics primarily from Plato’s Symposium (from the “Greater” and “Lesser Mysteries” of Diotima-Socrates’ speech); and that the Beautiful and the Good are not coincident classes, but irreducible Forms, and the loving ascent of the Symposium must be interpreted in the light of the Republic, as the later tradition up to Ficino saw. Against the view that Platonism is an escape from the ambiguities of ordinary experience or opposed to loving individuals for their own sakes, this book argues that Plato dramatizes the ambiguities of ordinary experience, confronts the possibility of failure, and bequeaths erotic models for the loving of individuals to later thought. Finally, it examines the Platonic-Aristotelian heritage on the Divine to discover whether God can love us back, and situates the dramatic development of this legacy in Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, and Dionysius the Areopagite.
This book is, along with Outward Signs (OUP 2008), a sequel to Phillip Cary's Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self (OUP 2000). In this work, Cary traces the development of Augustine's epochal doctrine of grace, arguing that it does not represent a rejection of Platonism in favor of a more purely Christian point of view a turning from Plato to Paul, as it is often portrayed. Instead, Augustine reads Paul and other Biblical texts in light of his Christian Platonist inwardness, producing a new concept of grace as an essentially inward gift. For Augustine, grace is needed first of all to heal the mind so it may see God, but then also to help the will turn away from lower goods to love God as its eternal Good. Eventually, over the course of Augustine's career, the scope of the soul's need for grace expands outward to include not only the inner vision of the intellect and the power of love but even the initial gift of faith. At every stage, Augustine insists that divine grace does not compromise or coerce the human will but frees, heals, and helps it, precisely because grace is not an external force but an inner gift of delight leading to true happiness. As his polemic against the Pelagians develops, however, he does attribute more to grace and less to the power of free will. In the end, it is God's choice which makes the ultimate difference between the saved and the damned, and we cannot know why he chooses to save one person and not another. From this Augustinian doctrine of divine choice or election stem the characteristic pastoral problems of predestination, especially in Protestantism. A more external, indeed Jewish, doctrine of election would be more Biblical, Cary suggests, and would result in a less anxious experience of grace. Along with its companion work, Outward Signs, this careful and insightful book breaks new ground in the study of Augustine's theology of grace and sacraments.
"A devastating attack upon the dominance of atheism in science today." Giovanni Fazio, Senior Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics The debate over the ultimate source of truth in our world often pits science against faith. In fact, some high-profile scientists today would have us abandon God entirely as a source of truth about the universe. In this book, two professional astronomers push back against this notion, arguing that the science of today is not in a position to pronounce on the existence of God—rather, our notion of truth must include both the physical and spiritual domains. Incorporating excerpts from a letter written in 1615 by famed astronomer Galileo Galilei, the authors explore the relationship between science and faith, critiquing atheistic and secular understandings of science while reminding believers that science is an important source of truth about the physical world that God created.
In The Gospel of Thomas and Plato, Ivan Miroshnikov offers the first systematic discussion of the Platonist impact on the Gospel of Thomas, arguing that Platonism is indispensable to making sense of those sayings that have long remained exegetical cruces.